Let’s tackle your questions in reverse order.
could the cable be a USB-C to USB-C as shown in the 1st attached pic?
No. USB-C doesn’t support an Ethernet-like protocol directly; you need those two Ethernet dongles.
Note This setup would work on the Mac, assuming you replace that USB-C cable with a Thunderbolt cable. The Mac is able to run an Ethernet-like protocol over Thunderbolt.
What do you call the hardwired version of Wifi Direct (or Apple peer-to-peer Wi-Fi)?
Wow, that’s a really confusing question.
First up, Apple devices don’t support Wi-Fi Direct. They never have and, with the advent of Wi-Fi Aware, it seems unlikely that they ever will.
Apple’s peer-to-peer Wi-Fi protocol doesn’t have a public name. I generally call it Apple peer-to-per Wi-Fi, or peer-to-peer Wi-Fi when the context is obvious. You might see it referred to as AWDL — you’ll also see that string in logs and other places — but that’s not a term I use because… well… for reasons that are hard to explain without diving further into implementation details than I’m comfortable doing.
All of the above relates to the link layer, that is, how you move Ethernet frames between devices. When you have an direct Ethernet connection, all of it’s irrelevant. Ethernet connections can move Ethernet frames without the rigamarole you see with Wi-Fi [1].
Once you have the link layer established, you then start working with TCP/IP. And that brings us to Bonjour, which is an Apple term for three industry-standard protocols:
Bonjour allows devices — both Apple and non-Apple — to communicate across an Ethernet-like interface without the need for any infrastructure. So, if you take two devices, disable Wi-Fi, and connect them via Ethernet, your app running on those devices can discover and connect using Bonjour technologies.
Bonjour also works over Wi-Fi, but on Wi-Fi there are additional complexities:
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Under normal circumstances, both devices need to be on the same infrastructure Wi-Fi. In that case, all you need is standard Bonjour protocols.
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If the two devices are not on the same interface, you need Apple peer-to-peer Wi-Fi to bridge the gap.
Finally, at WWDC we announce support for Wi-Fi Aware, an industry standard protocol that solves the same problem that Apple peer-to-peer Wi-Fi. However, I should note that Wi-Fi Aware doesn’t literally bring up a Wi-Fi interface over which you can run Bonjour. Wi-Fi Aware has its own integrated service discovery.
Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
[1] It is possible to tweak Ethernet to offer the <snark> convenience and simplicity of Wi-Fi </snark>. For more on that, see IEEE 802.1X. However, that’s not going to be relevant to your setup.